test-drb July 2015

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

176 participants
257 discussions

by c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com

As Fred Cisin writes: "Yes, as usual, all such claims are meaningless without term definitions. What Murray was referring to was arguably the first PERSONAL computer store, and run as a retail storefront. IBM did do some retail sales, although they might not have called it "retail", out of their building. Even "first" and "store" could use some restrictive definition: Do sales out of a living room count? garage? corner of another kind of store? (there already seems to be an exclusion of mail-order) If a grocery store clears space in an aisle does that count? Did Ed Roberts have a front counter, and handle walk-in? Assembled working systems? or do kits count? Signing lease? Acquiring retail inventory? Opening of doors to the public? First retail sale? First Order? or First Delivery?" **************************************** What I was attempting to say in my post was that the first computer store was a retail outlet that sold MICROCOMPUTERS, and/or PERSONAL computers and/or SMALL computers all we could carry around without doing physical detriment to one?s self.[I shopped at Canada's first computer store on 44 Eglinton West, Toronto, and to this day I'm not sure of the name or date it started] I realize there?s many a definition of what one could call a computer store but I would describe it as a ?unique? place that sold computers exculsively as I?ve described herein. We?re talking only a limited number of machines available as of mid-1975. (Please refer to my book: A Historical Research Guide to the Microcomputer: Small Computers of a Bygone Era, p. 43.) Prior, one had mail-order option only or as major computer corporations, IBM, DEC, etc., selling ?computers? or computer parts/peripherals as a retail operation in name only as Fred describes above. Hobbyists as far as I know didn?t buy from IBM or DEC(well, maybe rich ones bought their mini-computers) and when computer stores opened hobbyists had a hand-holding-entity to further their interest in a new industry. This changed somewhat when Tandy(Radio Shack), et al. came on the scene. Happy computing. Murray :)

8 years, 9 months

Mysterious S100 SRAM card

by cube1＠charter.net

That does sound like a MITS serial no. The K is for Kit as opposed to factory assembled. "drlegendre ." <drlegendre at gmail.com> wrote: >What's the significance of "3462K", as is hand-written on the 8080 CPU >board? > >Is that a serial? > >On Sat, Jul 25, 2015 at 1:29 PM, Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> wrote: > >> On 2015-Jul-25, at 8:33 AM, Bill Sudbrink wrote: >> > Dwight wrote: >> >> Dave, you were going to tell us where you found it? >> >> Dwight >> > >> > Probably in Larry Niven's Altair? >> >> Indeed, it's in one of his flickr photos of the LN Altair. >> >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/32548582 at N02/sets/72157653950476154/with/19938469936/ >> >>

8 years, 9 months

ISO: XT Compatible Keyboard

by slandon110＠gmail.com

Hey Guys, Looking for an XT Compatible Keyboard for this Commodore Colt Let me know what you have. Ive got lots of trading fotter as well. Or cash Thanks Steve

8 years, 9 months

Free For Shipping Commodore 16- No Video

by slandon110＠gmail.com

Just tested the C16, Its free to anyone who wants it and can fix it. Just pay shipping, Or if you are attending VCFMW I can put it in the pile of stuff to come.

8 years, 9 months

PDP-12 at the RICM (Michael Thompson)

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

Some progress on the PDP-12. We borrowed a TU56 tape head from the TU56 in the warehouse and replaced the broken right head. We reran ran MAINDEC-12-D3AE-PB PDP-12 TAPE CONTROL TEST, PART 1 OF 2. The diag runs OK, so at least the timing track in the borrowed tape head is OK. We reran MAINDEC-12-D3FB-D Tape Data Test. This diag searches for the block number, but rocks the tape back and forth after finding the block. If you put the tape a long way from the beginning of the tape the diag will move the tape in the correct direction. We connected Warren's logic analyzer to the data signals that from the tape heads and the register outputs that have the current block number. It looks like there are glitches on Data Track 1. We swapped the G882 modules in F07 and F09 for tracks D1 and D3. D1 looks much better Swaped the G882 modules back to the original slots and both D1 and D3 look OK. Maybe just a bad connection between the G882 module's gold fingers and the backplane's tin connector contacts. Now it looks like the current block number in the tape controller logic is reasonable, and it looks like it can find blocks on the tape. The Tape Data Testdiag still does not work, so next week we debug the write & read logic in the LINCtape controller. -- Michael Thompson

8 years, 9 months

Mysterious S100 SRAM card

by hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca

On 2015-Jul-25, at 8:33 AM, Bill Sudbrink wrote: > Dwight wrote: >> Dave, you were going to tell us where you found it? >> Dwight > > Probably in Larry Niven's Altair? Indeed, it's in one of his flickr photos of the LN Altair. https://www.flickr.com/photos/32548582 at N02/sets/72157653950476154/with/19938469936/

8 years, 9 months

Apple LaserWriter ever work with the Apple Lisa?

by nw＠retrocomputingtasmania.com

A colleague was adamant that the Apple LaserWriter worked with the Apple Lisa; my counter was I thought he was likely confusing his memory with the Mac XL which via Macworks and LocalTalk could use the LaserWriter drivers to print although more slowly due to the 3MHz speed difference (Mac XL at 5MHz, Macintosh Plus at 8Mhz). I found some evidence in InfoWorld that states that the LaserWriter would not be supported on Lisa Office System 7/7. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=6i4EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA13&ots=iH8F7zeaO_&d… short version: https://goo.gl/O1jokf Anyone know different? would Lisa 7/7 been unable to support the LaserWriter due to other software limitations?

8 years, 9 months

Chromatics on ebay

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

guess it was worth more than $5 Huh? In a message dated 7/25/2015 1:51:42 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, aek at bitsavers.org writes: Just came across his original listing http://www.ebay.com/itm/281747887309 Disturbingly, the ICs are pulled out of their sockets On 7/25/15 8:27 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > > > On 7/25/15 8:24 AM, Al Kossow wrote: >> >> >> On 7/24/15 1:14 PM, pdaguytom . wrote: >>> Back on TAS for just shy of a grand with free shipping. >>> >>> >> and someone bought it >> http://www.ebay.com/itm/281757114979 >> >> > I've probably seen a dozen of them for sale in the 25+ years of watching > this stuff, and what I've never seen is any software for either this or the > 68000 models. > > >

8 years, 9 months

Chromatics on ebay

by aek＠bitsavers.org

did anyone here get this? http://www.ebay.com/itm/281752359535 I am interested in a firmware dump, but not enough to drive to socal to get it.

8 years, 9 months

Chromatics on ebay (Al Kossow)

by johnwallace4＠yahoo.co.uk

>On 7/25/15 8:24 AM, Al Kossow wrote: >> >> >> On 7/24/15 1:14 PM, pdaguytom . wrote: >>> Back on TAS for just shy of a grand with free shipping. >>> >>> >> and someone bought it >> http://www.ebay.com/itm/281757114979 >> >> >I've probably seen a dozen of them for sale in the 25+ years of watching >this stuff, and what I've never seen is any software for either this or the >68000 models. Was there any software of note for Chromatics? My first employer had already spent a fortune on one of the Z80 ones when I started in 1979 or so. It had some flavour of BASIC in ROM. I'm not sure the floppies were working by the time I arrived. It was owned by the electronics hardware design people. The software tools people (where I was) did all the serious work on PDP11 (RSX/IAS and RT11) and eventually VMS. I left there in the mid 1980s. As far as I could tell the Chromatics had never really been used for anything more complex than a limited functionality large screen teletype emulator. Instead, low end LSI11 (including VT103) had been used for any serious work around the lab or around the factory, until PCs started to take over. I liked VT103s, but not so much the TU58s (we were one of the many sites that wrote something RSP-compatible that allowed use of centralised "remote disks" via serial lines, instead of the actual TU58s). There's a bit more software (and documentation) for the PDP11 stuff, thank you :) One thing the software people did buy in the mid 1980s which was great to watch was an Envision dot matrix tabletop colour printer/plotter, and an accompanying colour terminal (far superior to the VT24x of the same era). The printer used four separate ribbons and multiple passes over each line of text (if necessary) and spoke HPGL iirc as well as private text-mode escape sequences. The terminal was VT compatible and Tektronix 401x compatible at rather higher resolution. Nice stuff, but at maybe ?3000 each they probably didn't sell many. By that stage the Chromatics had vanished into a dark dusty corner. regards John Wallace regards John Wallace

8 years, 9 months

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test-drb July 2015